“Holy Henry had announced a morning service in a shack that had been turned over to him for that purpose, but not a man-jack turned up to it but an old Injun halfwit who’d been roped in by the Salvation Army and a one-eyed Hunkie who’d got religion at one of the weekday meetings. Holy Henry kneels down with his two-men congregation and prays silently for a few minutes. Then he went forth ‘clothed in the wrath of the Lord’ as he called it.
“And believe me, boy, that was some wrath. Somewhere outside he gathered up a piece of a broken handspike, and brandishing it around his head, he lands into first one camp shack and then another. He couldn’t make any mistake picking them random that way; they were all going full tilt. He’d burst through a door and land in like a little package of greased hurricane. Out would go his foot and over would go a table, chips, cards, money and all. Then he’d swing his club within an inch of the faces of the crowd. ‘Out of here, you bleary-eyed, low-lived, pigeon-toed, white-livered disciples of Baal!’ he’d yell. ‘Out, you sin-corroded, knock-kneed, flannel-mouthed desecrators of the Lord’s Day! Out, I say, for the wrath of God Almighty is upon you!’
“Say, you’d be surprised to see how quick he cleaned up the whole works. In about two minutes he’d smashed up about a thousand dollars’ worth of slot-machines and fortune-wheels with that hand-spike club of his. The crowd at first just stood around sort of paralysed and didn’t lift a finger to stop him. There was low growls, lots of curses, and threats of ganging him, but being that he was a preacher nobody seemed ready to start things.
“Some of the lads with level heads decided to go down and get the super. to interfere and decide what was to be done with the wild-eyed preacher. Smith was reading one of them high-brow books in his office when the delegation bursts in. He didn’t say a word, just got up, slips on his mackinaw and goes out to locate the cause of the disturbance.
“Holy Henry was smashing things about in the sixth shack on his list when the Big Boss poked his head in the door with the gang crowding up at his rear.
“‘What in hell does this mean?’ the super. raps out, spearing the preacher with them wicked, snapping black eyes of his. His face was like chalk from the cold anger he was holding back.
“Holy Henry was in the act of dumping a lot of poker chips and cards into the stove. The sweat was running down his face in little creeks and his thick glasses had got all steamed up, which didn’t matter because he was seeing all red up to that time. But the Big Boss’s words hit him like cold chunks of ice that had been shot into his system and the pep seemed to go out of him all at once. I’d seen bigger and stronger men than Holy Henry break down like that in front of Acey Smith, and I almost began to feel sorry for this trembling little bit of whiff of a fellow with that black devil of a man towering over him.
“‘It’s the Lord’s Day,’ he stammers. ‘I was just cleaning up these—these hell parlours.’
“‘Hell parlours—hell parlours,’ echoes the super. ‘Who in blue blazes gave you a license to wreck the camp? Tell me that!’
“The little fellow looked more sorrowful than ever and he says sort of quietlike: ‘I thought you were on our side, Brother Smith; I was doing this in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ.’